


Because I Could Not Stop for Death

by Izhilzha



Category: CSI: Las Vegas, The Sandman
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-01-16
Updated: 2007-01-16
Packaged: 2017-10-06 17:13:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izhilzha/pseuds/Izhilzha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Because I could not stop for Death,/[s]he kindly stopped for me...."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because I Could Not Stop for Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KerrAvonsen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KerrAvonsen/gifts).



When Gil Grissom opened his eyes for the last time, he thought he was alone.

It was a relief, at first. Since the moment his blood tests had come back positive, he had barely had a moment to himself. If it wasn't a nurse or doctor, it was a member of his team, masked, gloved, comfortable with the necessary barriers, bringing him news about the case, or music, or "dropping in" to chat about how things were going at the lab.

He wondered if this was what it might be like to be an insect under his own microscope. A specimen in a glass jar, on display.

An uncomfortable thought, but there was symmetry to it. Perhaps it was only fitting that he who lived to study others should die being studied.

At the moment, the room was empty. Grissom lay still and focused on his breathing, listening to the echoes of the monitor next to his bed. He wondered whether it meant that he still had hours to wait, hours of shortness of breath, of fever and constant pain; or whether time had run out, and there was simply nothing left that they could do. How much longer?

"Not much," said a cheerful voice.

Grissom found her leaning against his bedrail on the opposite side from the visitor's chair. At first blurred glance, she reminded him of Heather--who was, of course, still in jail, and could not possibly be here, even if someone had told her. The slender build, the loose, dark hair, the dark tank top. . . .

He blinked, and she came into clearer focus: the hair looked shorter, the face more familiar. Sara. No--she'd been here, but had gone somewhere, to run an errand, or....

An icy knot settled in his stomach, pushing down the persistent nausea, and making him breathe as deeply as the oxygen mask would allow.

He couldn't remember where Sara had said she was going.

"Your girlfriend needed the ladies' room," the voice said. "I thought I'd keep you company while she's gone. That's all."

Grissom forced his free hand, the one not encumbered by the IV and the pulse-oxygen monitor, to wipe his eyes, and blinked again.

He'd had the general details right, but the silver ankh she wore belonged to neither woman. Though now that he got a good look at her face, he was sure he had met her before. She was pale, with laugh lines around her dark eyes, and perfectly applied black lipstick.

She smiled at him. "Hi."

"Do I know you?" Grissom tried to make the words clear. Between the pain and the mask, he knew they would be muffled.

The girl seemed to understand him perfectly. "Of course!" she said. "You don't remember when we met?"

Grissom frowned at her. He couldn't remember Sara leaving the room, or where she had said she was going, but he did remember this young woman. With startling clarity, in fact, and in places where his common sense told him that she could not have been.

_Kneeling in a holding cell, reaching out a hand to the teenage boy who lay on the floor bleeding out from his wrists. Standing behind a distraught kidnapper as he opened his shirt to reveal a belt of explosives. Stepping between himself and a madman with a raised wrench, as a revolver fired three times. _

Sitting cross-legged in the corner of a blood-stained bedroom; reflected in a glass shower door; leaning against the banister of a staircase; a hundred different moments, at a hundred different murder scenes.

In his childhood home, the day he found his father on the couch. As he'd come into the living room, he'd seen her there, and she'd smiled at him over her shoulder.

"I remember you," he assured her, and had to stop, to breathe, before continuing. "I didn't realize I had so thoroughly personified death."

She laughed. "Well, don't worry too much. It's not entirely your fault."

Grissom wasn't in the mood for more mysteries, and let the cryptic comment pass. "Why are you here?"

For the first time, Death-- He couldn't call her that. She wouldn't meet his gaze. "You've been walking in my footsteps for a long time. Let's just say . . . I thought you might like a proper conversation, before." She put one elbow on the rail and rested her chin in that hand. "I've always had a soft spot for people who make it their life's work to witness the manner of someone's death. Usually there's just me."

She glanced at the clock across the room, then smiled down at him and rested a warm hand on his shoulder. "Are you ready to go?"

Grissom couldn't help turning his head, to see if Sara had come back in. He thought he would have heard her, but with the beeping monitors and the rush of his own heartbeat loud in his ears, he couldn't be sure.

The chair, and the room, were still empty.

He closed his eyes and sighed, then turned back to the woman, who had straightened up and was waiting. "No, I'm not. But isn't that how it usually happens?"

"Come on, then." In one movement, she lowered the bed's railing, then held out a hand to him.

Grissom took her hand, and let her pull him to his feet.

~~~~~

Sara Sidle was three steps from Grissom's hospital room she heard a noise like the rustling of great wings. She picked up her pace and was actually in the doorway when the alarms went off.

She had about thirty seconds at his bedside before the medical personnel swarmed in. She took his hand, limp and still warm, in hers. His eyes were closed, his weary face relaxed, so at least he hadn't gone in pain or too much distress. That was something.

As the attending doctor brushed past her to check Grissom's vitals, she grabbed him by the coat. "No extraordinary measures. That's what he said. Okay?" Sara didn't let go till the doctor had nodded confirmation, and then she sank into the nearest chair, where she could see Grissom's face, and waited for them to call the time of death.


End file.
